Pictures from the Concerts.

If you look hard enough, you might be able to see some middle-school-hip-shaking action going on. Thank you, Richard Simmons.

Ah the handbell group...playing their little hearts out.

The High School Choir. I did everything in my power to make them smile. It worked some?

Nairobi Music Society. This is the large choir that I sang with...you can kind of see the orchestra in front of us. We sang two large works: Magnificat and The Many Moods of Christmas.

This is the other choir, a small group of about 16 people that I performed with as a part of the Nairobi Music Society. We sang songs in Spanish, Latin, German, French, and English. It was great.

Concerts Galore.

Yeah, this weekend was "plentiful" and had an "abundance of" (thanks, dictionary.com) concerts. We had the Friday night Rosslyn concert, but then I had two Nairobi Music Society concerts: Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. It was a weekend full of beautiful Christmas music.

The Rosslyn concert went great as expected. The students were so prepared. Mostly I just loved how my 6th, 7th, and 8th graders did flashlight choreography with Richard Simmons-esque movements...probably my favorite part. The handbell ensemble did great as well; people absolutely love to watch handbells play, especially since there aren't very many at all in Kenya. As for the high school choir, well...let's just say that I have the ability to make them laugh pretty hard while they sing. They had a really nice, soulful Christmas song called "Rise Up Shepherds and Follow," and I may or may not pretend I'm singing the women's part while conducting. Don't judge me...that's just how I feel the music, ok? I really enjoyed how the high schoolers were able to add in some different, fun things like percussion instruments and movements to add some "spicey spice" to the songs. The format of the concert itself was really cool as well, thanks to my cooperating teacher here. We had the fun, Santa-y songs in the first half, and the second half worked more like a more traditional Christmas cantata service. There were Scripture readings telling of the need for, the coming of, and the birth of Christ, and each reading correlated to a hymn sung with the congregation or a song sung by one of the choirs. It was meaningful...which is nice.

Onto the second concert of the weekend: NMS Christmas Concert #1. There are actually two choirs part of the NMS, a large ensemble choir that sang with the NMS orchestra and a small, chamber choir of 16 people. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to sing in both. A Kenyan conductor, Ken Wakia, directed throughout, and he was a fun man to get to know. Now of all my weekend concerts, this was the most entertaining by far. It was made so due to a few factors: A large portion of men standing up during the middle of the concert when they weren't supposed to, a replica of Mr. Bean that I sang next to, restarting one of the movements of "The Many Moods of Christmas" 3 times due to a lack of percussion entrances, and sitting next to a guy I've gotten to know throughout our rehearsals and laughing with him at the hilarity of it all. It was a blast.

The third concert, NMS Christmas Concert #2, went much smoother than first, and I maintained my composure throughout the concert this time. It was a bittersweet time, though, because as I said my goodbyes to friends I've made with people in this group, I knew that it would be a long time until I would see some of them again, if ever....Muryah, Sylvester, Tony, Stefan, Daniel, Beth. Being a community choir in a large city, it was a very diverse group made up of Kenyans, Americans, Brits, Canadians, Germans, French...young and old alike...it was amazing how any song that was sung in a different language was able to be translated or spoken to us by a native speaker of that language. So we exchanged email addresses and Facebook names, and if I'm ever in Kenya in the future or if they're in the States, we decided we would get together and hang.

I'll be posting pictures of the concerts soon. That's all. Other than that, my weekend was boring. Clearly a weekend of 3 concerts is not enough. :) Thanks for caring about me and reading my blog, guys. I can't wait to hear about all of your lives when I get back.

Welcome to Our World.

Welcome to Our World

Christmas Concert
Rosslyn Academy
Friday 4 December 2009 6:30 pm

Under the direction of
Lynn Charisse Zettlemoyer, Choral Director
Mark Statler, Taylor University

Tonight I direct a Christmas concert in Kenya. Less than 2 hours away, actually. Don't be too jealous (although I know you are).

If you're reading this within the next two hours, some prayers sent up on our behalf here would be very much appreciated. As the students and I have talked about, our goal for this concert is simply to sing a message of God's love to the world. If you have the chance, listen to Chris Rice's song "Welcome to Our World" (which our concert is aptly named after). It gives the greatest encapsulation of Christmas that I have ever heard in a song. The message of our need for Jesus and God's love in sending Him down to us is so strong; and I pray that is the motive behind our performance tonight.

The Greatest Day Ever.

The actual day was Monday 16 November 2009. But it literally may have been the best day in my life thus far. I mean, when I daydream and think about everything I want to do in life, this day nearly encapsulated all of those desires.

The day began when I woke up at 5 in the morning in order to watch the Colts - Pats game. Lucky for me, it was on our ESPN channel in the house...sweet, I know. So basically the Colts sucked it up the whole game, shown by a 17-point deficit in the 4th quarter. But because of many fortunate events and the understanding that this was the morning of the greatest day ever, the Colts came back. Holding the Pats on a huge 4th and 2 play on the Colts 30-yard line with 2:00 left, the Colts marched right down the field and scored with :13 left on a BEAutiful pass and catch - Peyton to Reggie. The Colts won 35-34, and I wanted to pee my pants I was so excited.

We drive to school, and I proceed to differentiate the instruction to my students by watching a taped "mock" performance from last week and evaluating it. It was great - worked for every class, was fun, different, and I noticed a pretty significant difference in their sound (and posture...) when we rehearsed afterwards. The teaching day ended with a comment I made to the high school choir about "making the good better"...they awwed. It was a special moment.

We leave school, and I'm in great spirits. As we get home, I finally work up the courage to introduce myself to some of the guys working with the Chinese food business based out of our house. Turns out one of the delivery guys is a music teacher! What the heck, right? We got to talking, and he invites me to a choir rehearsal on Tuesday night - the Nairobi Music Society choir. Yes, please. I come inside, change, eat some snacks on my bed, thinking about how great of a day this is when I hear basketball being played outside. I think, "Heck...let's just add some more greatness to this day." So for the next hour and a half I play basketball with Cymn, Robert, Edward, and Fred...it was great.

I then eat dinner, have great conversation with Harrison, Cymn, and Steve, watch some KTV (Kenyan Television) news, make a playlist of "Greatest Day Ever Reflection" music, and I sleep fully.

Simple joys: American football, teaching a fun lesson, meeting a Kenyan music teacher, playing basketball with 4 great Kenyan guys, and having great conversation. Mmm. Great.

The Loss of Hope.

I always thought that a person who had lost all hope equaled a person who was weak and did not have enough willpower. I understand now that a person’s hope is not so much lost as it is stolen. A young woman has no choice when she is kidnapped, drugged, and sold into sex slavery. A beautiful, young girl who is betrayed by a person who is close to her in order for him to have a few moments of pleasure whenever he wants is rendered paralyzed to resist, think, or later, speak about it to those around her. A boy living amidst violence and chaos, surrounded on all sides by the influence of gangs, members of which are the only people in the world he has to trust, has no choice to even see what the other side of the fence may hold. If these young men and women have not hope, it is not because they have lost it themselves; it has been taken from them. Satan has invaded their lives…their stories, and hastily taken their hope, their chance, their futures. In no way is it their fault. They have not chosen this path for themselves. Much like those of us who have been blessed to have a loving, hopeful path fall before us, they have been cursed to have a painful, discriminatory, abused, frightened, hurtful path fall before them. They have had no such choice to live in a suffocating environment as I have had no such choice to live in a family of a father, mother, and sister who love me and support me in everything I do. The loss of hope is just as natural for them as are the thoughts toward the future, daydreams about who I want to be someday, and hope that I experience everyday are natural for me.

I will not profess to know why this is the case. I just know that Satan has so much of a hold on this world that hurt is obvious to abound in people’s stories. It is not my job to “fix” hurt. I am immobile to fix hurt. It is impossible for me to fix hurt. But the One who ‘wrapped our injured flesh around Him, breathed our air and walked our sod, robbed our sin to make us holy’ can. He is the King of Redemption stories…He is Jesus, the King of The Redemption story.

He can place meaning in a story where there once was none.

He can give the woman sold into sex slavery a reason to live, a person to lead her out of it, a reason to share her story. He can give the girl raped by the man she trusted a voice to speak, a reason to love, and pride in the woman she will become. He can give the boy surrounded by gang pressures a way out, a future abounding with meaning, an influence that will lead him to the other side of the fence.

He can give hope. He will give hope. He does give hope.

And for that, Lord, we thank You.


"God has a way of bringing unique challenges to help each person mature. No matter what decision you make, God will always send His angels to get you through the struggles." -- Teaching Hope


The past couple of days have impressed upon me the need for hope. I am beginning to understand how difficult it is to keep a mindset of hope when a person is in a situation or environment that does not lend itself easily to it. This writing was inspired after I read a section of the book Teaching Hope entitled “Challenges” and a long conversation had with three great friends here in Nairobi.

Football.

I'm successfully making the transition to football. Because in Kenya...football is where it's at. They say it's the most popular sport in the world. And after tonight, I can tell why.

I watched the varsity team play in the semi-finals game versus their archrival, Rift Valley Academy, this evening. It was incredibly exciting. It made me want to start playing football. Actually, it makes me want to start playing football...like...right now.

Here's how it went down: The game was dead even through the entire first half. Both teams had very strong defenses and skilled goalkeepers, and there had been few shots even close to getting in, so the score going into halftime was nil-nil. The pace was a bit quicker the second half, and a few balls nearly scored, but impressive plays by both sides contained the score still to 0-0 after 89 of the 90 total minutes. With less than a minute to go, Rosslyn kept the ball deep in RVA's territory; with a strong offensive push, a lot of heavy body contact, and a goalkeeper not quite getting to the ball, Rosslyn scored the one and only goal of the game! The crowd went nuts, I high-fived some of my middle school students sitting next to me (we had previously been beating on drums and blowing extremely loud noisemakers throughout the game together), and a few short seconds later the refs blew the whistle, and Rosslyn advanced to the Finals.

It's things like this that connect you to a school and its students. Sitting amidst a community cheering for their team, playing drums and yelling at referees with middle school boys, asking other teachers if they've heard updates on teams playing away games...I really do feel so much more a part of Rosslyn Academy after tonight.

Ok...but seriously...I want to go play football right now.

p.s. I'm going to incorporate this into my choir rehearsals tomorrow. I'm trying to get my students to understand the concept of a sforzando, in which you attack a note, back off quickly, and crescendo out of it. Rolling a football from one side of the piano to the other, the choirs are going to sing from forte to piano, crescendoing, and decrescendoing...and hopefully they'll make the connection from the football pitch to the choir room. Thanks, teachable moments.

Other Peoples' Stories

Sometimes I just love getting wrapped up in other peoples' stories. Especially if they're real. Take Donald Miller for instance...he's done some awesome things, and he's great at writing about them. Or a friend of mine here in Kenya named Laura...she's been here for 3 months, living in a hut in the northern part of Kenya for most of it, and she has some funny and crazy stories to tell. Or pretty much any of my students here at Rosslyn Academy...because they've either lived in 4 different countries in their 12 years of existence or they've grown up speaking multiple languages or their dad works for the UN or their mom works as a missionary in a local organization...or because they're just different than I am.

The trouble is...I can sometimes get caught up in someone else's story and forget about my own. I mean, here I am in Kenya, living in a neighborhood where I can count the number of white people on one hand, people with completely different cultures and backgrounds surround me, and I still have the option to forget my story and seclude myself in another person's.

That's why I have to constantly pray that God would help me to remember that I am here, in this world, for a purpose that He wants me to fulfill. I love books and movies because they can help me to see a different side of the world I don't know, they can fill me with empathy for others' stories, they can remind me of how to live my story, and they can give me knowledge of how to help other people...but if I forget to live these learned things out...well...it's not worth a lot, is it?

Above the Clouds

I just lived a great story.

For the past 3 days, I had the opportunity to hike up the 5199 meter (17,057 foot) Mount Kenya. I for real climbed a mountain. I mean, we had it all: a guide, a cook, porters…we walked in and above clouds, through rain and snow, and loved every minute of it. We walked nearly 45 miles in the 3 days…from the Mount Kenya National Park gate at 2650 meters all the way to the summit of Mount Kenya at 5199 meters. It was an incredible experience.

On Friday, we hiked a consistent uphill trail about 5 miles to Old Moses camp to spend the night. Saturday we left and hiked a rainy, muddy, and difficult 15 miles until we reached Shipton’s camp at the foot of the snow-capped peaks. We began in the dark hour of 4 a.m. the next morning, and we reached the cold summit at 7:30 a.m., climbing through the wind and snow.

We spent a few minutes taking pictures and reveling in the idea of being on a summit before playing in the snow and having a snowball fight with Simon and David, our Kenyan guide and one of the porters with us on our hike.

Following a nice, warm breakfast at the foot of the peaks, we began our seven hour hike on tired legs back to the gate where we rode a matatu (cheap and ridiculous form of dangerous Kenyan public transportation) back to Naru Moru and caught a cab back to Nairobi.
But basically the point of all my hiking boils down to this: I walked above the clouds…it still blows my mind.

Habari gani?

Well, here I am! Nairobi, Kenya. This is going to be quite an experience, I can already tell. Just in the conversations I've had in the past few days, I can see I really don't know very much (Although most of you probably already knew that...).

For instance, I found out that a "napkin" is actually what is used to make a diaper...not what most of us would first think of. I also found out that the people who clean public bathrooms will walk in and start cleaning while you're going to the bathroom...even if the cleaner is a woman. Yeah...that one was a little awkward to find out. Also, electricity is, well...sporadic to say the least. At least 10 times throughout the school day, the electricty and lights will go out before the generator kicks them back on after a few seconds. When it happens, no one really seems to notice, because it happens so dang much. And at my family's home, the power was out from the time we got home from school yesterday evening (around 5:30 pm) until we left this morning (7:30). We ate dinner, hung out, read, and wrote all by the light of candles and lanterns until we fell asleep.

So as you can see, I'm already learning a lot, and I anticipate to learn and share many more of those stories as they happen. But right now I'm headed off to eat pizza and hang out with some of the walimu (teachers). I'll be adding pictures of the school and my home soon.

Kwa heri (Bye)!

'Twas the Day Before Kenya...

What does one do the day before they leave for a far-away land where they will be spending multiple months? "Oo..I know, I know! Packing?" No, no, no...that's saved until much later. (Such as the last few hours before I leave for the airport.) This is definitely a leading question, and the answer I'm leading you to is this: Riding horses. Oh, yes.

It was a fantastic time, and it should be in everyone's pre-Kenyan trip experience. Other forms of entertainment for this kind of time frame: Driving down roads marked as construction that have all of their pavement scraped off, nearly hitting owls sitting in the middle of the road, and taking pictures of trees in the dark.

Thank you for being a part of my first blog post, and I promise that once I'm out of an airport and in the beautiful land of Kenya, I will be able to post entries much more worthwhile to all of us. :)

The next time you read something from me, I'll be in Nairobi, Kenya. Bye, bye, now!